Art Practice Commons^™

Orthoplanar Spring Based Compliant Force/Torque Sensor For Robot Force Control, Jerry West

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A compliant force/torque sensor for robot force control has been developed. This thesis presents methods of designing, testing, and implementing the sensor on a robotic system. The sensor uses an orthoplanar spring equipped with Hall-effect sensors to measure one component of force and two moment components. Its unique design allows for simple and cost effective manufacturing, high reliability, and compactness. The device may be used in applications where a robot must control contact forces with its environment, such as in surface cleaning tasks, manipulating doors, and removing threaded fasteners. The compliant design of the sensor improves force control performance and …

Design, Fabrication And Analysis Of A Paver Machine Push Bar Mechanism, Mahendra Palnati

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Now-a-days, the major challenge that’s being faced by the concrete industry is the cleaning of concrete handling equipment. Concrete consists of aggregates, which harden with time, and the transportation of concrete mixture within the plant is a significant problem. This will not only increase the overall maintenance cost, but will lead to loss of raw materials, affect the rate of production, and reduce the lifetime of concrete handling equipment.

The present study focuses on the design and implementation of an adaptive cleaning mechanism in the concrete industry and its importance in achieving efficient cleaning, which is tested to verify its …

Development Of A New Guidewire Torque Device, Erika Rigaud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Guidewires have been used in many operating rooms by vascular surgeons to assist them in positioning and maneuvering through a tortuous stenosis or lesion to a desired location, and to be used as a guide for the implantation of a catheter. Surgeons are tasked with having to insert a guidewire inside a small cavity, which requires a high level of skill and patience. The insertion of the guide wire is controlled by a torque device, which allows a surgeon to advance, rotate and grip the wet hydrophilic coating of the guidewire. Despite its many advantages, the torque device does, in …

Modeling And Design Of Photocatalytic Reactors For Air Purification, Yangyang Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Photocatalysis is a promising technique for the remediation of indoor air pollution. Photocatalysis utilizes semiconductor photocatalysts (such as TiO₂ or ZnO) and appropriate light to produce strong oxidizing agents (OH*) that are able to break down organic compounds and inactivate bacteria and viruses. The overall goal of the research is to develop an efficient photocatalytic reactor based on mass transfer for indoor air purification. This study has focused on the enhancement of the effectiveness of the photocatalytic process by the introduction of artificial roughness on the reactor catalyst surface. The major effect of artificial roughness elements on the catalytic …

Design Of Contact Line Friction Measurement Machine Apparatus, Seyed Kamran Najafi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to design and manufacture a high precision machine to directly measure the surface force of fluids. Knowing how to move droplets easier with less resistance can increase the potential of a wide range of applications and improve the performance of things such as self-assembly applications. This machine has the ability to measure forces of up to 100 N with a MEMS based sensor. The motion system on this machine moves a substrate underneath of a droplet for 100 mm and applies dragging force to the sensor. It moves with a controlled speed with high …

Design And Analysis Of An Innovative Semi-Flexible Hybrid Personal-Body-Armor System, Daniel Jeffrey Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current military-grade rifle body armor technology uses hard ballistic plates positioned on top of flexible materials, such as woven Kevlar® to stop projectiles and absorb the energy of the impact. However, absorbing the impact energy and stopping a rifle projectile comes at a cost to the wearer - mobility. In this thesis, a new concept for personal body armor is proposed - a semi-flexible hybrid body armor. This hybrid armor is comprised of two components that work as a system to effectively balance the flexibility offered by a soft fabric based armor with the protection level of hard plated armor. …